The Time Flyers

By R.M. McLeod

Henry Harrison is twelve-years-old and something of a minor tearaway. He is also, quite incorrectly, the prime suspect of the armed robbery of a market trader and, as the novel begins, on the run from the law.

Anxious to clear his name, he finds midnight sanctuary, illegally, in the home of a retired professor of physics, but rather than immediately hand him over to the police, the professor listens to his trespasser's tale with some sympathy and even offers to help Henry clear his name. This he does by allowing him to use his newest, most secret and prized invention – the ability to travel in time.

What follows is a suspense filled journey through time and space as when the kindly professor is kidnapped by terrorists Henry joins forces with the old man's grandson in a desperate bid to rescue him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Panda Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386979357

R.M. McLeod

From being a small boy, R.M. McLeod has always been interested in ‘a good read’ and promised himself, from being a young boy, that one day he would also write one. He has had two books published in paperback – The Witches of Lewthan Mountain and The Escape of Athelwan. The Ghosts of Badger Wood has also been serialised in the North West Evening Mail. He lives in a fairly remote area of Cumbria and, he advises, it is the incredibly beautiful scenery surrounding his home that inspires the fantasies he so loves to write.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was late, dark, raining heavily and as Henry Oliver Harrison looked anxiously down the dimly lit suburban street, he smiled, grimly; it was deserted. Now feeling exhausted after the evening’s exertions he leant against a tall, decaying, garden wall and tried to catch his breath. Slowly, very slowly, he managed to bring his breathing under control and after easing an unruly mop of sodden, black hair from his eyes, glanced at his wristwatch – it was ten minutes after midnight – no wonder he was so tired.

He was just about to continue his journey when he noticed the eerie, blue light. It was moving slowly towards him and appeared to be washing the leaves and branches of the numerous trees that grew in the gardens of the big houses further down the street. He frowned, all he wanted to do was find somewhere dry to get his head down, enjoy a snooze, and then try to find a way to prove his innocence.

He estimated that the patrol car was about four hundred metres away but it was now approaching fast, its blue, flashing light becoming brighter by the second. He glanced upwards, the wall he had been leaning against was at least a couple of metres high but it was old, very old and in more than one area a brick had been damaged by frost giving an excellent climber, such as himself, handholds and footholds aplenty. He nodded, vigorously. No time to think about it or they would be upon him! 

He had just grasped the top of the wall when some of the rotten brickwork came away in his hand, fortunately for him most of it falling relatively quietly into the inky blackness of the overgrown garden that lay beyond. However, had it not been for the overhanging branch that Henry was using to swing his feet upwards, he would most certainly have been caught in the glare of the police car’s powerful headlamps.

‘Phew!’ he exclaimed under his breath as the vehicle proceeded up the lane. ‘That was close.’ Then, about a hundred metres from where he was sitting, perched on top of the wall, the police car stopped and Henry, heart pounding, froze. He heard a door open, there were faint, hurried words before it was slammed shut and the blue light, once again, began to fade, slowly, into the distance. Henry now began to try to take stock of his surroundings. He had no torch but with so many police officers looking for him to have used one would have been quite unthinkable anyway. Although the illumination from the less than adequate street lamps was poor, he could still see, stretched out before him, a large and badly neglected garden. It appeared to be mainly comprised of straggly weeds, un-pruned rhododendron bushes, and medium-sized trees. It was also, he quickly concluded, a very good place to hide until dawn, for, by then; he hoped, the pressure from his tormentors would be a little less intense.

He was about to jump down into the wilderness that awaited him when he heard the voice and with heart still pounding and hair, literally, standing up on the back of his neck, he once again froze rigid.

‘I’m certain I saw him run into this street,’ said a woman, who was standing less than a metre away from him, ‘certain I am.’

Instantly, Henry worked out that at least two police officers had disembarked from the car when it had stopped a couple of minutes earlier. Silently, they had then walked slowly towards him until they were standing a mere arm’s length away from his hiding place; under the thick, green foliage of the branch that already, that night, had saved him from a disastrous fall. 

‘Well, we haven’t seen him,’ said the woman’s male companion. Suddenly, he shone a torch into the trees above him, the beam only just missing Henry’s right leg. ‘What’s behind this wall?’ he asked.

‘Oh it’s a massive, overgrown garden,’ said the woman. ‘It belongs to old Professor Johnson, he’s a bit nutty, you know; an eccentric recluse who spends his time working on mysterious inventions that never seem to work.’ She chuckled. ‘Apparently the grounds of his house are more untidy than those of Sleeping Beauty’s Palace.’ She glanced down and shone her torch on the wall debris Henry had knocked onto the footpath. ‘See, even the wall’s falling down.’ The police officer suddenly shivered. ‘Let’s get on, if he is hiding in there we’ll never find him tonight, not without dogs and they’re both away helping with the suspect terrorist case on the other side of town.’

‘Sure,’ agreed the man, ‘we’ll have to carry out a thorough search of the whole area tomorrow, when we get the dogs back. I’ll make a note to have this place given a really good going over; with a bit of luck it’ll have stopped raining by then.’

Henry did not move for over five minutes. Then, finally satisfied the officers had definitely gone on their way and with the help of the great branch, he eased himself downwards and into the forbidding, and almost forest-like garden that waited beneath him. The silence was only broken by the sound of the incessant raindrops hammering on the leaves above him and the sodden ground he was standing on. He paused, trying to satisfy himself that he was still alone and that no one had seen him enter the grounds of what he now knew, thanks to the police officer, to be an elderly professor’s home.

He could see the house now; it was about fifty metres ahead of him, its rain-soaked walls glistening in the faint, golden light that came from the street lamps. Then he saw something which completely surprised him; on the ground floor of the building was an open sash window, its drenched curtains still flapping slightly in the light breeze. Henry had planned to hole up in the professor’s grounds, perhaps in a shed or greenhouse, for no more than a couple of hours before moving onto another, less risky location. Thanks to his earlier eavesdropping he knew that, later that morning, the police were going to search the garden with dogs. He also understood that against such odds he had little, if any, chance of remaining undetected. However, the open window offered him other possibilities – shelter, dryness, warmth and most important of all – perhaps even some much-needed food.

Henry considered the window for a moment then made up his mind. Seven seconds later he was climbing though it and three seconds after that lowering himself, gently, and silently, down into the darkened room that lay beyond. His heart was thumping even more violently now, beating as though it was trying to burst though his rib-cage, as if wanting to alert the quietly sleeping owner of the house that an unwelcome intruder was now on the premises. Quickly, he pulled down the window and locked it in place. If the police were to come snooping around before he left then an open window may make them suspicious; something he very definitely did not need.

Although dark inside the room, there was just the faintest glimmer of light coming though a crack in the doorway and, quickly, Henry made towards it. Gently, he eased it open and peered around it. As he suspected, the door opened onto the hallway, the light coming from a low-wattage bulb hanging from the ceiling. For a moment, as his breathing became less rasping and more under control, he listened, intently. There was nothing except the low hum of what he thought might be a refrigerator coming from a room across the hallway and it was the thought of what might be inside that refrigerator that made up his mind. After taking a deep breath and a final look up the hallway and stairs beyond, he moved rapidly into the room, closed the door and after passing his hand along the wall, found and depressed the light switch. He had been correct; it was the kitchen, a very old-fashioned kitchen, with an equally old-fashioned but nonetheless inviting looking fridge standing in its far corner.

Five minutes later, Henry was sitting at a well-battered pine table, a glass of milk in one hand, a large and very tasty pork pie in the other and despite being wringing wet through, a broad, beaming smile brightening up his hitherto miserable looking face.

‘Enjoying our little self, are we?’

The sudden intrusion of the mellow, but loud and firm-sounding voice was so completely unexpected, so totally out of the blue, it made Henry jump, quite literally, five centimetres into the air. Instinctively, he made a grab for a carving knife that had been lying on the table before swinging around to discover who had so completely and explosively intruded on his stolen meal.

‘Who are you?’ growled Henry, menacingly and whilst pointing the knife in the stranger’s direction.

Surprisingly, for Henry, the man smiled. ‘I think that, as you’re trespassing in my home, I’m supposed to ask the questions. So...if you don’t mind – who are you and what are you doing in my house eating my Melton Mowbray pork pie and drinking my milk?’

Standing now and although still armed with the knife, Henry had retreated to the far side of the kitchen and after the initial shock of discovery took a moment to study the man who had so very nearly given him a heart attack. He was, considered Henry, about seventy-years-old and quite tall; he had short, greying, almost white hair, a whiskery beard and was wearing a pair of old-fashioned, horn-rimmed spectacles. His ankle-length dressing gown, that had seen far, far, better days, was food-stained from accidents with countless meals and from out of a hole, in his ancient red slippers, poked a large, black, toe.

‘Henry, Henry Harrison,’ muttered Henry not knowing quite what to say or do but never, for one second, taking his eyes off the owner of his midnight feast.

‘Professor Reginald Maynard Johnson, the Second,’ said the professor, quietly and without showing the least concern that, in the middle of the night, he had just discovered an armed, food-thieving trespasser eating said stolen food in his own kitchen. Without waiting for a reply he casually picked up the kettle, walked across to the sink and began filling it with cold water. ‘Have you never seen a black man before?’ he asked, after switching it on.

‘Err...well...of course I have – why?’ asked Henry.

The professor shrugged. ‘You haven’t stopped staring at me since I came in to the kitchen,’ he replied, sitting, quite casually and obviously unruffled at the table. ‘Anyway, you may as well finish the pie,’ he continued. ‘I can assure you that I no longer have any interest in it whatsoever.’ He looked at Henry and frowned. ‘Don’t stand there looking gormless boy, come over here and sit down.’

Warily and still clutching the knife, Henry sat facing his host and not having eaten since early the previous day, willingly gorged on the tasty snack.

‘So,’ began the house owner, ‘as I asked earlier; who exactly are you and apart from eating my food and drinking my milk, what exactly are you doing here, in my kitchen, in the middle of the bloody night?’ 

Henry shrugged and feeling that he had nothing to lose went for it. ‘I’m Henry Harrison; I’m twelve-years-old and I’m on the run from the cops,’ he said, quietly.

The professor nodded, to Henry’s amazement, with approval. ‘Okay, okay, that’s a good start, now why are on the run from the cops, Henry?’

Henry lowered his eyes for a second. ‘They think I robbed a store and then threatened the owner with a knife.’

‘And you didn’t?’

Henry shook his head violently. ‘No, course not, I don’t like knives.’

‘Really?’ said the professor, looking at the carving knife his unexpected guest was still clutching.

Suddenly realising the contradiction of his words, Henry dropped the weapon as though it were red-hot, then looked apologetically at his host. ‘It wasn’t me, honest, the police have the wrong person.’

‘Then why don’t you tell them?’ asked the professor. ‘Why don’t you give yourself up and let the police do the job they’re paid to do? If, as you say, you are innocent then they’ll soon discover you’re telling the truth and let you go.’ 

Henry was shaking his head. ‘Not a chance, they’re